Tag: friendship

Embarrassing Stories

I realize that the last two posts made me look pretty gay. While I proudly claim the label “queer” for myself, I have sometimes been told that bisexuals don’t really exist. Contrary to popular opinion and some very flawed studies, bisexuals are real. I have debated about telling the following stories, but I feel that it is necessary to set the stage for the following post (A Dark Winter). Alcoholism involves a physical addiction but is often fueled by emotional and spiritual deficits. To recover I had to come to recognize that I was “soul sick.” My soul sickness began before my addiction developed. Even after I knew it was bad for me I continued to drink because it was the only medicine I had that assuaged the deep anguish I felt. Now I will place myself on the autopsy table for a forensic investigation into some of the underlying conditions that amplified my disease. I hope my honesty makes up for the bad impressions you will get from my behavior.

When I was in sixth grade I was pretty uninhibited, often playing the role of clown in class, and very active on the playground. I teased and flirted with the most popular girls in class because I didn’t see why not: I was a boss. I remember hanging out with Lisa and Katie at Lisa’s house on a few afternoons. There was quite a bit of off-color humor, as you would expect with eleven-year-olds. That year for Halloween our town put on a haunted house. There was this old mansion on the edge of town that was in the process of being restored by the historical society. It was made available for the purpose and I suppose a lot of work was put into it. These days it’s not unusual for organizations to put together such things, but at the time it was very new. Everyone was excited to go, and a group of us including some of my siblings went together. I clearly remember going through the first two rooms, the horror displays, the jump scares, the arms reaching out from hidden places to grab at you as you passed. At a certain point something weird happened in my brain. I remember feeling disoriented and dissociated. Suddenly my legs were moving in a new direction without any accompanying thought. I suppose my prefrontal cortex switched off and the animal parts of my brain took over. I somehow got past the workers who were shouting, “Hey, kid, you can’t go that way!” and evaded capture. In serpentine fashion I darted across three rooms and found an exit. Once out in the safety of the cool night air I took a deep breath, relishing my return to consciousness. When my group came out a few minutes later they were saying, “Where were you? We lost track of you and didn’t know what happened.” I was ashamed of the fact that I had panicked, but was also a little bit proud of my daring escape. Their security was weak. Perhaps they didn’t anticipate any of their victims making a break for it.

Over the summer leading into seventh grade I got a girlfriend, Kelly. It began with playground flirtation. I remember being at my dad’s house for a couple weeks after that and thinking of her obsessively. I was lost in fantasy and imagined her thinking of me too. I sensed the potential of — what? I didn’t even know. But when I got back in town, saw her again, and learned that indeed she had been thinking of me the whole time I was gone it was pure elation. This was my first experience of someone I really liked liking me back. That Fall we were “boyfriend and girlfriend,” which really meant that we continued to spend time goofing off on the playground at her condominium complex and talking a lot. I believe we spoke on the phone as well. One day in October she said to me, “Come over here, there is something I want to give you.” We went away from the playground to another courtyard in the complex. “What?” I asked. “Come over here,” she said, leading me into a recessed doorway. I stood with my back against someone’s door as she turned. Smiling, she placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “Close your eyes.” I did, still clueless. All at once I was awash in the sweetest sensation: her soft lips planting one careful kiss on mine. I was overwhelmed. I did not reciprocate, but I could think of very little else for the next few days. But I guess with what was going on at home I somehow couldn’t go any further with her and I cut things off suddenly. For decades I regretted the hurt and confusion she must have felt at me breaking up with her for no apparent reason, but it was a bit like my escape from the haunted house. I couldn’t have told you why I did it. After that I became increasingly shy and inhibited about my crushes.

One of the themes of this blog, a main theme actually, is the dangerous destructive potential of low self-esteem. I think my parents were misguided on this subject. Perhaps as a mix of Catholicism and Twelve-step ideas, I was taught that pride was a sin, humility a virtue, and that “ego deflation at depth” was good spiritual medicine. Whenever my parents perceived that I was getting “too full of myself” they would tear me down verbally. Of course, with Walt it was physical too. Today I understand that self-esteem is different than pride. “Pride” exists as a poor substitute for self-esteem, often activated in response to accusations or insults. It’s natural. Being called “queer” in a derogatory context made me militant in my denials. I finally developed some real self-esteem in my fifties, thanks to going back and finishing my undergraduate degree, and also meeting the love of my life during that time. Her humorous yet loving acceptance of my foibles has helped me to accept that, while utterly unique and weird, I am just like everybody else in that I deserve love and happiness just by virtue of the fact that I exist. I don’t have to “earn” it — it’s a birthright. That, my friends, is self-esteem. My parents weren’t given anything approaching unconditional love growing up. They worked hard to prove that they were of value in the world, but somehow never seemed to really believe they had succeeded. As a result they were very good people, but deeply insecure nevertheless. In my teen years I was plagued by the same sense of inadequacy and it permeated my awkward attempts to gain notoriety through my musical activities.

On with the next story! I met Tana when I was in tenth grade (she was a year older). I sat next to her in marching band class as she played tenor sax and I played baritone sax. Tana was very intelligent and we joked around a lot. She was unusually close to her mom and was active in her church. She was tall and thin, and to be honest, I didn’t find her physically attractive at all. But I loved our friendly banter and I relished how our friendship grew over that year. Enter Trisha. The first Star Wars movie was released over the following summer and made quite an impact. The fact that the music stood out enough to make the album a hit made it all the more popular with us band nerds. That Fall (now I was in eleventh grade) a new girl showed up in band playing French horn. She had recently moved up from L.A., had tacky dyed blonde hair, a curvy body and a cute face. Most sensationally, she had a bubbly-yet-nerdy personality that made her the focus of attention for me and my male friends. We couldn’t get enough of her! I had seen Star Wars in the theater once or twice. She told us she had seen it a dozen times and she knew people in L.A. who had over a hundred viewings under their belts. She talked a lot about how amazing L.A. was, and hungrily soaked up all the attention she was getting. In a small town she was suddenly a big fish.

After seventh grade my “romantic life” had devolved into fantasy-driven, super-secret, excruciating crushes from a distance. With the girls I was friends with I could joke around easily, but when I developed a crush on someone I became quite shy. Trish was a little different because we were part of a friend group (comprised of her and a bunch of guys who lusted after her), so while my crush was secret (barely, I guess), I was able to be my usual boisterous self. We all had a lot of fun that fall. The marching band had been fundraising for a year to make a trip to the Mother Goose Day Parade in El Cajon, down in San Diego County. That meant travelling by air, which I had never done. The parade was scheduled for the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We were playing “Ease On Down the Road” from The Wiz, and the band director’s concept was for us to come to attention, play about eight bars of “Over the Rainbow” while standing still, then start marching to the upbeat popular song from The Wiz. Cool! But we didn’t have an arrangement of Over the Rainbow. The director asked me if I could take this piano arrangement by George Shearing and score it for marching band, writing out all the parts. I could do that! I gained even more notoriety from that accomplishment, as not too many high school juniors could have done it without help. My “ego” was growing.

I hadn’t had anything to drink since the infamous champagne incident before ninth grade, but some of the guys I knew from Jazz Ensemble were partiers. They invited me to go for a drive with them one evening and we cruised Main Street, drank beer, and smoked a joint. I was not used to this form of male companionship. They asked me if I liked any girls (no doubt they had heard the rumors about me liking boys). I said, “Yeah, I think Trisha is really hot.” They started shouting things like, “Yeah! You should bone her!” I was pretty uncomfortable with that attitude, as I already knew her well enough to know she was not that type, appearances perhaps to the contrary. She had quietly admitted to me that she had no sexual experience. But I felt the peer pressure to make some kind of move in her direction. As the trip to San Diego neared, I somehow mustered the courage to call her. I told her I really liked her, thought we would be good together, and asked her if she wanted to hang out with me at the San Diego Zoo, which was planned as part of the trip. She said yes! I was euphoric for about three days as I kept our arrangement secret from the rest of the guys. I was lost in a world of fantasy that included walking around holding hands, maybe sneaking a kiss in front of the giraffes. The night before we were to leave on the trip I received a phone call. She said she was worried that maybe I wanted to go off alone with her, which would probably alienate the other guys and mess up the friend group dynamic. I learned she had actually been a chubby misfit in L.A., had lost weight and dyed her hair over the summer, and was making a new start of things. She told me she had worked hard to develop an outgoing personality and to build up a social circle and didn’t want to ruin it. It really felt like she was confiding in me, which I should have appreciated more than I did.

If I could travel back in time as my sixty-two-year-old self and talk to sixteen-year-old me I would say, “Dude, you got this. She likes you. She wants to go out with you, but she doesn’t want to ruin the trip for the other guys and destroy what she has built. She’s opening up to you. Just play it cool on the trip knowing that you are going to start dating afterwards. Make a plan to go see a movie with her.” But I was an insecure dork, and I felt myself spiraling into despair. I told her I understood, but once on the airplane I couldn’t bring myself to try to sit near her or speak to her, even. I sulked the whole way. She seemed hurt and confused. My mom would have derisively told me to get off my pity pot. Ugh. The trip turned out to be very fun anyway, but I just couldn’t get past the feeling that I was not good enough for her. On the flight back I sat next to Tana. We had been good friends for over a year but she knew nothing about my failed attempt to get something started with Trisha. After take-off I suddenly, without really thinking about it, put my arm around her. She accepted it, and we sort of cuddled the whole way back. I was weirdly gratified when I saw that Trisha had noticed us before quickly turning away. Revenge? What a dick, though. Arriving back in town, Tana took me aside and said that us being a thing was probably a bad idea. She was right, but it was a second blow to my pride.

I never apologized to either of them. The common denominator in all of these stories is that under certain stressful circumstances I would act or react in ways I couldn’t control or even explain. Apologizing or salvaging the situation in some graceful way was simply not within my capabilities at the time. Not long after that weekend Tana’s mother died suddenly. I’m sure it turned her whole world upside down. The following semester she was like a different person: she had ditched the horn-rimmed glasses for contacts, lightened and styled her hair, wore make-up, and now had a stylish wardrobe. Soon she was dating one of the most popular guys in the senior class and became part of the “in” crowd, partying a lot. We never really spoke again.

As for Trisha, our friendship was rekindled when I helped her rehearse a number to audition for the Spring musical. Judging from what she wrote in my yearbook the following year we must have become good friends by the time I graduated, but I am sure the San Diego incident was never mentioned again.

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Robert and John

When I was in sixth grade I had a posse. I was the chief instigator and center of attention for a group of about six guys that I had known since kindergarten. Our desks were pressed together right next to the teacher so he could keep an eye on us and redirect our attention whenever necessary. It was often necessary. When the constant giggling at my little quips escalated to raucous laughter, it would be time once again to send me out to the hallway so that things could cool down. This went on all year, and I loved it. Poor teacher. But he was great, the only male teacher I had in elementary school but a true classic, from Boston. We California boys loved his accent. But in seventh grade it was just me and Chuck, both lonely misfits who constantly bickered with each other, resentful of our plight. I will have a lot to say about my relationship with Chuck in another post. I mentioned him when I told the story of how we entered beginning band together in eighth grade, and how we were made fun of by the more inveterate members of the advanced bands.

One day in eighth grade between classes, I sat down at the piano in the band room and played some ragtime, rolled out some improvisations as well. One of the kids from Symphonic band, Robert, heard me and got very excited. As his friends began to arrive he told them, “Hey, listen to this guy play: he’s really great!” A crowd gathered and I became a somebody. The beginning band wasn’t good enough to perform anywhere, and I still felt like a guest in the band room, but Robert invited me to hear the Symphonic band perform their winter concert. Robert was a percussionist, the good kind. He could read music very well and played the glockenspiel, xylophone, and timpani in addition to all the drums. I arrived at the concert that evening feeling like I was crashing a party or something, out of place but eager to hear the music. I sat near the back of the auditorium, but when Robert looked up from tuning the timpani and saw me he…smiled. Just a simple smile, notable for its lack of self-conscious reservation. No hedging or goofiness. Just, “Hey, you made it! Glad to see you.” I felt welcomed, and confused. Guys didn’t just smile at other guys, I had discovered in seventh grade. You don’t want people to think you’re gay or something, I had learned. But, no, he just threw me an easy smile and I think it may have changed my life. After that I felt like I belonged in the band and the band room. By the end of the year I began to be the center of a new circle of friends, and I liked it.

In summer school Robert taught me to play timpani and encouraged me to fool around on the other percussion equipment, showing me how to interpret drum notation. I was learning tuba and bassoon on top of baritone sax. It was a fun summer during which my friendship with Robert grew. I mentioned in a previous post that there were several boys who vied for status of “best friend,” and I wouldn’t ever grant any of them that title. But forty years later I looked back and realized that Robert really was the best friend I had in those years, even though I had never really noticed. I took him for granted because I could: he was so loyal and patient with my awkward social convulsions. Near the end of that summer, when we were fourteen, his sister got married. I should say something about Robert’s unusual family. Robert’s parents were members of a social club near my house, notable for the swimming pool enclosed by a fiberglass fence, with a clubhouse that was basically a private bar. His dad and dad’s best friend were gym teachers, I think, and the two couples had long taken family vacations together, camping at the beach and such. I think they liked to party because they had a full wet bar in their house. Anyway, some years before I met Robert, his parents and their best friends decided that they were married to the wrong people. They all divorced and remarried — each other’s spouse. The two families continued to get on great with each other, and the numerous children of the two marriages mixed freely and were allowed to live in whichever house suited them. I had never heard of such a thing! But they were all very nice people. His sister’s wedding reception was going to be held at the social club, and Robert told me he might be able to sneak a bottle of champagne out, so I should be ready. That Saturday afternoon Robert quietly arrived at my house with not one, but two bottles, still cold since the club was a block from my house. We snuck out to the detached garage about sixty feet behind the house and locked ourselves in. All I remember is how good it tasted. We laughed and joked around as the effect grew. I had never been drunk before, but by the time my bottle was empty I sure was. What I didn’t know was that Robert had already consumed a whole bottle on his own before arriving at my house. After finishing what turned out to be his second bottle, he threw up. Then passed out. I tried to get him back to the house, but he threw up again and collapsed in his own vomit. I couldn’t rouse him.

My mom and brothers and sisters were sitting watching TV together as the clock neared 10PM. They were startled as they heard the back door slam open, loud footsteps coming through the laundry room, kitchen, then dining room. As I entered the middle living room (still one room away) they had a clear view of me by now, and they knew it was me because I was yelling, “Mom! Mom!” the whole time) I suddenly tripped, did a shoulder roll and popped back up, still running. That’s when they noticed the blood running down my forehead. They assumed I had been in some accident or been beaten up. What had happened is that I fell on the back steps (without feeling a thing) in my haste to get some help for my possibly deceased friend. I told them that Robert had passed out and I couldn’t wake him. My mom jumped up and headed to the back door while my older sister Karen, now eighteen, laughed her head off. She knew immediately what was going on, and thought it was hilarious. Robert was fine. My mom called his parents and they laughed the whole thing off, saying, “Well, you know, boys.” My mom was mortified. I was grounded for a month.

When school started we told the story to the other boys in the band (I was now in Symphonic!) and they got a great laugh out of it. We gained a lot of status, as none of them had ever done anything so outrageous. The group of us adopted the name “The Chompain Bunch,” pronounced with a bad impression of a Mexican accent. I had a new posse.

One day after school, not long thereafter, I heard a commotion in the hallway outside the band room. When I came out to see what was going on I found Eric the trumpet player holding a very tiny, very wet kitten. “Someone just tried to flush this kitten down the toilet!” We didn’t believe him at first, but he said he heard the voices and the toilet flush before some boys ran laughing out of the building. He had gone into the restroom and found the kitten still in the bowl. We all formed a circle to look. He was adorable, a tabby, and happy to be held in someone’s arms. “What do we do with him?” everyone wondered. I sensed that Robert was about to say something, but I blurted, “I’ll take him. I’ll keep him.” And Eric, who had found the cat and was still holding him, said, “OK, but you have to name him John, since that’s where we found him.” And that is how I came to possess my very own cat.

John was the best thing that had ever happened to me. He was sweet and playful, no trouble at all. He slept with me every night. I remember one night having a dream where I was being attacked by a rattlesnake. I struggled with it, but it kept trying to bite me. Finally, in desperation, I attempted to stick my finger down its throat, and it stopped. I snapped awake and saw John sitting there nonplussed, shaking his head and opening and closing his mouth. My finger was wet. I remember when we took him to get “fixed,” how he wobbled around the house as the drugs wore off. He was always a good sport about anything like that. During the time I was skipping school, later that year, Robert was the one who would drop by on his way home and hang out with me, just to make sure I was all right. One day he skipped too, and we hung out all day. He played with John, whom he loved, while I played the piano. Even after I started going to school again six weeks later Robert continued to come by often. We spent many hours together, talking about music, life, people, stuff. He loved Rachmaninoff as much as I did, and I loved the way Robert smiled whenever I played ragtime. He let me borrow an old set of bongos and taught me to play them. Robert was great. One Friday in high school we stayed after school and he taught me the “timp-tom” part of the cadences we used in marching band, which he normally handled. The timp-tom is a set of three tuned drums you wear in a harness. The next Monday during Marching band rehearsal I played the timp-toms while Robert marched with the bell lyra. We had fun, but the director said I couldn’t do that again: I was needed on tuba.

Back to ninth grade: one Saturday Robert was over and I was practicing bassoon. I recall my mom and several family members were there. I glanced over and noticed that John had fallen asleep in the empty bassoon case! Robert laughed when I pointed it out. I put down my bassoon and quietly crept over to where John was snoozing and gently closed the lid. Even full grown, John was always a petite cat. I latched the case. No sound from within. Laughing, I gently picked it up by the handle and walked all the way through the house with the bassoon case hanging at my side. As I passed by my sister Jenny she asked, “Where are you going?” When I told her what was up she followed me. When I got to the dining room I set the case on the table with care, popped the latches, and opened it up delicately. There was John, now awake, totally chill. I went and grabbed my mom’s instamatic camera and snapped a picture, which is the only one I have of him.

In the Fall of 1977 the nation was riveted by the airing of the mini-series, Roots. I think it was the first time White Americans focused their collective attention on the history of Black people in our country, and it was a shock. My whole family watched. It would be difficult for me to over-state the impact that show had. I was instantly in love with LeVar Burton, of course. Everybody at school was talking about it, too. It pained me to have to miss two episodes due to evening marching band practice. That Thursday I returned home from practice at around ten, sad to have missed the show, which my family was still talking about. I looked around. “Where’s John?” I asked. My siblings’s faces dropped. “Oh,” they threw glances at each other. My brother, Dan, said, “John got hit by a car. He died.” I demanded to see him, disbelieving. Dan explained that a neighbor who lived around the corner had seen it happen and recognized him, calling our house. Dan, Jenny, and Drew raced out to see him, but apparently he was so badly injured they didn’t even want to go near the body. They had called Animal Control to come pick him up. So I never saw him again.

Something changed inside me. It was as if giant steel doors were slamming shut, one after the other, like on the beginning of the show “Get Smart.” I loved John the way only a child can: without reservation, without limits, without thought of self. He was the perfect cat. He had been my constant companion for two years. He kept the nightmares away. Now he was gone. I somehow knew I could never love anyone or anything the same way again. Now I would always have to guard my heart a little against the possibility of loss. Ten years later I “inherited” a female tabby named Cygnus, who had been in the family for about eight years. I loved her very much, but it was never with the same abandon with which I loved my little John. That night I was numb. But when Robert came over and found out that John was dead, he cried. How I envied that.

[Me on the piano, Robert on the timpani, and Eric (who originally rescued John) on the flugelhorn, photo for a newspaper promo for a high school concert.]

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